29 March 2009

I can confidently say that if it weren't for the Professors Dibley, I would not be anywhere near where I am today. Peter was my Intro to the Bible professor and showed me how fascinating the Bible and the world it was written in could be. Genevive convinced me that I could change the world with it. Peter will help officiate, and Genevive will be one of the ladies who gives me a flower for my bouquet on our wedding day in August. They are so incredibly dear to me, and therefore I am excited to announce that their second daughter was born on March 24th! Her name is Lucia Genevive Dibley, and she was 7 lbs, 12 oz and 21 inches long!

Baby burrito!!!

Peter and Lucia

Genevive and Lucia

It's amazing to me how different two babies from the same family can be, especially considering that when Langsea was born almost two years ago, she didn't even fit between my wrist and my elbow! (see below)

28 March 2009

Barry's saddening post today got me thinking. Like one of those coffee commercials where the last drip of caffeine-y goodness falls into the cup and creates ripples that expand out to the edges, his news hit my brain and rippled out, churning up memories not of anyone particularly close to me, but thoughts of someone who I never really knew.

My paternal grandmother died of breast cancer so long ago that I don't even remember how old I was when it happened. What I have left are incredibly vague recollections of something that I couldn't possibly begin to understand at the time. I knew Grandma was sick, but sick to a five(ish)-year-old is a cough and a runny nose, not anything necessitating radiation and chemo and the whole shebang. Months before her death, Grandma and Grandpa had been over to visit at our house and Mom sent me upstairs to wake them up for breakfast one morning. Dutiful to the last, I scrambled up the stairs on all fours, my hands and feet slapping against the hardwood announcing my arrival. I opened the door to the Pink Room (my favorite, for obvious reasons) to herald the meal as Grandma rolled over in bed to face the door, her head bald as a cucumber. It simply didn't compute. The Grandma I knew had short, curly grey hair. My little mind ran through all possibilities and connections like the cherries and horseshoes and numbers on a slot machine display, landing at last on one satisfactory option. Grandma looked like an alien, only human-colored instead of green! It didn't make any sense at all! I screamed and ran down the stairs to Mom in the kitchen, who eventually sorted the whole thing out.

We went to visit Grandma and Grandpa later that spring, but when we got to the familiar brown house, things were different...weird. Mom and Dad pulled me and Becky into a side room, the one with the TV where I fell asleep to "The Ten Commandments" around Easter and which held, to my great amusement, the pillow shaped like a hamburger complete with lettuce and tomatoes poking out from underneath the bun. I'd be lying if I said that pillow wasn't a source of excitement for me when we went to visit. I don't even think we sat down. Mom pat Dad on the back as he looked from me to Becky and told us the news, "Grandma died." I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, but Becky started to cry so I deemed it a situation worth shedding tears over as well. I was wearing my blue dress--a happy occasion only heightened by being around the hamburger pillow--but it wasn't so exciting anymore. Whatever had happened, it was bad. The next day, I stood next to the casket, holding Dad's hand and peeking over the edge to see Grandma in a pink suit and her favorite angel pin. She looked pretty. This time she was wearing her hair. I liked it better that way. I looked up at Dad to make some sort of sense about all of this, but he looked like he had other things on his mind.

We stood there for a few more minutes together, and then he picked me up and together we walked away. I looked back at Grandma. Pink was a good choice, I thought, it's my favorite color.

Inspired by Barry's post today, complete with video of him walking Lindsay (who is quickly turning into my favorite animal that I've never met) on Scarborough Bluffs, I have officially returned to my roots. Well, maybe not my roots. More like my stalks. See, we moved a lot growing up and somewhere in between different places in Maryland and Pennsylvania, we ended up in New Hampshire. And New Hampshire has Fritz Wetherbee. And Fritz Wetherbee is to New Hampshire what Garrison Keeler is to the Midwest. He tells stories about things and places that you would never possibly think are interesting...until Fritz Wetherbee tells you about it. Seriously, I want this guy to narrate our wedding this summer. Imagine: "Long ago, there was a camp named Carpenter. It was a camp where young chaps in the Boy Scouts could run about and fulfill all their childhood summer goals--swimming in the lake, earning merit badges and the like. Oh yes, it was a dream come true for these children, but for two New Hampshire residents, it would be where they found love..."

In celebration of this, I downloaded a Fritz Wetherbee ringtone. Now everytime my phone rings, it says "Fritz Wetherbee here. You have a phone call....I hope it's someone from New Hampshire!"

Also, I just recently found a great little blog named Rivers I Have Known. The author's great and inspires me to write a few more witty posts, finish that journal I'm a page an a half from completing, and generally put off that Jewish Backgrounds homework that I've been meaning to do for a week now. Anyone fancy writing an essay about 1-2 Maccabees?

I stood at the head of our kitchen table last Thursday absolutely defeated. Giving up spending money on anything but necessities for Lent has not turned out the way I imagined it would, I thought, stuffing my keys into my Vera Bradley. It was supposed to show me how God provides, but it's really just showing me how much I want other things. Heather was about to come over to go to Subway with me, a rare trip to eat out because the contents of my cupboard included no more than some dried fruit and frozen corn. I had screwed up my solo at orchestra rehearsal for what felt like the thousandth time that afternoon. The dress rehearsal in an hour proved to be both intense and uncomfortable. Great.

I threw an old water bottle next to my wallet in my bag and headed through the kitchen, my fingers floating in midair, playing inaudible notes on an invisible cello as I headed for the back door. I looked at the dogpile of shoes next to the nearly empty shoe tree in our closet. It was regrettably too cold for flip flops. I wonder if Amanda would mind if I borrowed her boots. I ended up concluding that we probably weren't the same size. I poked around the pile, missing the grey corduroy clogs I'd bought at the Wal Mart in Juneau for $9 and which were, somehow, the most comfortable close-toed footwear I'd ever owned. They mysteriously disappeared about six months ago and I've been bitching about it ever since. Seriously, bitching. In the words of Scot McKnight, "'Bitching' is a good, solid, Christian word. Someone who's complaining is definitely bitching."

Who am I to refute the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies?

And so I bitched in my mind while poking around the closet and tried on a pair of Converse only to conclude that it was too cold for those too and maybe I would wear my sneakers instead. As I reached for them, a square in the shoe tree caught my eye. ...Or maybe I'll steal Taryn's clogs just this once, I thought, wishing the ones in the shoe tree were really mine. I reached into the square and felt a soft brush of corduroy. Taryn's clogs are suede. As I pulled the shoes out of the square with the sensitivity of a Biblical archaeologist, Heather knocked on the door. I opened it, staring at the shoes I was turning over in my hands like they were gold.

Heather stood in the doorway, staring at me.

"Are you contemplating stealing your roommate's shoes?"

I just kept turning the shoes over, investigating them for any sign of familiarity. "I don't think so."

"Oh my gosh, are those the shoes?????"

Like I said, I'd been bitching. A lot.

I peered into them. Size 8. Faded Glory. And then I found it--a spot on the top of the left shoe, a remnant of dropping something on my foot at work over the summer. I dropped the clogs to the ground and stepped in, feeling the familiar imprints of my own feet. The melodius tones of "Reunited and it Feels So Good" wafted through my brain. Heather smiled. I smiled back. A missed solo wasn't so much of a crisis anymore. "It's them!" I exclaimed to a now equally ecstatic Heather. "I don't get it! I checked that closet a thousand times!"

We skipped off into the sunset towards Subway, arm in arm and comfy shoes on our feet. It only figures that this event happened just when I was frustrated that God didn't seem to be providing. But He does, even if it's something as silly and little as finding your favorite pair of shoes again. Then again, God once spoke through the mouth of a donkey, so I suppose it was only a matter of time until He got to footwear. And hey, God clearly must be interested in shoes...didn't John the Baptist tell Jesus that he was unworthy to untie his sandal?

21 March 2009

I really think that my generation is in the best place possible. First off, we're golden in the economy--we're too old to be feeling the trouble via our parents, yet too young to have lost some of our 401k ourselves. We've never had real careers, so we're still okay with working crap jobs for crap pay to live in crap apartments with a few great friends. The list goes on.....to technology even. Seriously. Best generation technology-wise. We grew up when everything was just coming out--the Internet, computers, cell phones, every Apple product that we now swear we could never live without. We're not so young that we can't remember life without it and not so old that it's all an enigma...but sometimes I'll admit I wish the technology thing wasn't true. And that's mostly due to Facebook.

Not that I hate Facebook. On the contrary, I think it's a wonderful tool to keep in communication with friends and family (my dad officially became cool the day he sent me a marshmallow Peep via Facebook). I belonged to Facebook in the days that it was restricted to just college students (the way it should have been kept, sorry Dad). And then high schoolers could join.

And then the military.

And then workplaces.

And then anyone.

And then we could all put statuses up.

And then they added the Mini Feed.

And then......we all exploded because of the enormity of Mark Zuckerberg's influence on our lives.

All of this is to say that I'm tired of Facebook oversharing. And under editing.

Do I really need to know that "last night was great, Kyle ;-D" ???? No. At least send your Dear John letter via a personal message.

Is it really imperative to our friendship for me to see that you are "on [your] way to the computer lab, then maybe the dining hall, quick stop at Starbucks, then class 3-4:30"? They call that sort of knowledge stalking. It's illegal. Please stop making me an accidental stalker with your inability to think of something more telling than your schedule for the day.

And then there are the people who think they hit the witty button but.....gosh, who just didn't. You know what I mean. "**name left out to protect the inhumorous** says 'You know you're a redneck if your gunrack has a gunrack on it'". Oh, don't go there, **name left out**, I know for a fact that you live in a broken down apartment complex in the suburbs and own neither a gunrack, nor a subsequent one on which to place the prior rack in question. Or guns to put on any of them. And your neck is the same color as mine. Leave jokes like that to West Virginians (sorry, Zach). Cheese and rice.

All of that being said, my current status is "Cindy Lambert FINALLY FOUND HER CLOGS!!!!" Necessary for the world to know? Actually yes....I'll be posting on it later....

17 March 2009

I have a love-hate relationship with March. Lion or lamb, it comes in and I hate it every year. It's rarely sunny, usually packs at least one nasty snowstorm, tends to be incredibly damp, subjects me to at least one day of "Oh, you don't have to wear green, you're already Irish! Where's your 'kiss me' button?" and worst of all, it flirts.

Yes, flirts.

I have been to high school. I have lived at college. I have seen flirting at its best and worst. And March is the worst, like that blonde in high school you knew that couldn't walk past anything with a Y chromosome without trying to seduce it. March is that blonde. Blonde March. It saunters in after meek little February and sort of waggles its fingers at you, batting its eyelashes and beckoning you to hope in its promises of Spring. You think it's safe to break out your flip flops and short-sleeved shirts. Maybe you even take a walk outside without a jacket. And then it hits you with a snowstorm. You are left outside, be-flip flopped, jacketless, in the snow, like all good romantic comedies. Or a Hemingway novel. Rejection. Ouch.

Today, however. Oh, today. Today is payback for two weeks of rain and sub-freezing temperatures. Yesterday the high was 61 degrees. Today it is 73 and sunny. North Park is celebrating in full force: walking to my apartment from class, I was greeted by one Tom Rorem (our resident troubadour if anyone deserves the title) standing on the roof of his two-flat with his guitar, singing across the campus scene; I stumbled into the middle of a glow-frisbee golf tournament on the Greenspace when exiting the library around midnight last night; I have seen more people in jeans and flip flops walking to class in the past 45 minutes than I have seen in the past six months. It's a North Parker's delight.

Class levels will go down today in favor of greener pastures and sunlight, for tomorrow bids a 50-degree high. Again with the Hemingway and the rejection and the flirting. Come on, March! Seriously? Maybe we need to have a RDT. I'll meet you in the gazebo...things usually turn out for the better there.

14 March 2009

Every time I leave from a visit with Kip, I'm generally emotionally stable by the time I get to baggage claim. And every time, I forget that That Couple always meets me there.

Take tonight, for example. I'm feeling optimistic, a little hungry even, when I take my stance at Claim 13 and wait for my giant blue bag with bated breath. And then I look across the claim belt to see a reunited couple, her arms around his waist in that unmistakeable, "We've been apart too long so you're not going anywhere, buddy" sort of stance. I hear low voices to my left from another pair, arms planted firmly around each other and lost in the moment. I change my focus to the foreground of my vision. Another couple. Kissing. A flash of blue distracts me--my bag! With a mighty heave-ho, I drag my bag off the claim belt and through the crowd, out the door and onto the sidewalk waiting outside, where I am greeted by a Porsche drawing up to the curb. Feeling like a guy for a minute, I oogle at its smooth lines and auto-superiority...until its driver glides out of the car and is immediately swept up into an embrace by their significant other. Two nearby bomb-sniffing dogs bat their paws at each other in a playful little game. If I were in a Disney movie, this is when two butterflies would fly past, fluttering around each other in a show of Spring...or maybe just irony.

Somewhere around the terminal, and with a certain air of comic relief, a baby starts to cry.

12 March 2009

Moving to Alaska takes many things: getting used to everyone asking how you feel about Sarah Palin, learning how to make Extra Tuffs into a fashion statement, a certain amount of mental illness....But it also means that the C terminal of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, affectionately referred to as SeaTac, becomes a second home. No, sir, you cannot enter the state of Alaska from the Lower 48 without going through SeaTac. That is, unless you really want to do that 14-hour layover in Anchorage, but really...at least SeaTac has a Wendy's.

The very many exciting things at SeaTac include approximately 54 times the amount of fast food chains than Juneau, the most amazing breakfast taco you'll ever have at Anthony's, Butter London (in which you can get a very inexpensive manicure that surprisingly doesn't result in some sort of infection), a Discovery Channel store that never ceases to entertain me, a surprisingly amusing intra-terminal train system, and water fountains.

Yeah, I said it. Water fountains. They bubble. And no one has believed me about the bubbling water fountains...until now:

09 March 2009

Anyways, Alaska's home to eagles, whales, and general adventure, which doesn't include internet access. Therefore I'm out for a week or so while I visit Kip for Spring Break. Keep yourself occupied with my past posts on Alaska during June, July, and August.

01 March 2009

It's actually a rather impressive miracle that I've gone through nearly four years of education at an urban liberal arts university where hookah drifts like a haze across the Greenspace on the first warm day of Spring without dredding my hair and swearing off showers and violence.

Alas, my conversion has come about three and a half years too late. Thanks in part to my Environmental Science class, my to-do list for life now stands thus:

-grow my own herbs in Juneau

-recycle as much as possible

-simplify my belongings and therefore my life (that's more of a spiritual discipline, really)

-bike across town instead of driving The Box

-buy locally as much as I can

-only eat grass-fed beef

-avoid all forms of corn syrup at all costs

-use a Polaroid camera as much as physically possible (this has nothing to do with Environmental Science...I was inspired by our wedding photographer's blog)

In celebration of my recent hippiness, and for your listening pleasure, here you go. Hookah, braided hair, and flower power are all optional: